Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Leadership???????????

"Oh, waiter! Um...Waiter, I am powerless to eat this meal."
"What is it now?"
"Well, y'know how I said I needed the broccoli spears facing a certain way and the fish had to be a certain temperature and the gravy had to be a certain consistency and the butter had to be medium-soft?"
"Yes. You've sent your meal back six times already. I'm quite familiar with your order."
"Well, it's lovely, but it needs to be on a different-colored plate. Let's try chartreuse, shall we? Let's try that."

Harry Reid gets a green light:

"Golly, I am powerless to proceed. It looks green, I'm confident it could be green, but I'm also detecting a hint of red. Yes, I believe the filament inside the red light is still slightly illuminated and I couldn’t possibly proceed until I was assured that it was completely extinguished before I step on the gas. We'll have to get a ladder and check."
[Honk!!! Beep!!! Honk!!!]
"Your horns are not helpful in this situation. I'm powerless."

Harry Reid takes yes for an answer:

'Look, I want to believe you said yes. I know you've repeated it several times and it certainly sounds like yes. But I am powerless to accept it as yes because of all the possible meanings that may exist for it. 'Yes' could mean something obscene in a different language and I would be reticent to accept that definition in this particular circumstance. So until I'm able to open a congressional investigation into all the subtleties of the word in question, I shall have to suspend any action until such time that I'm convinced that your yes means my yes. I request that you keep this ice cream truck idling here for the next twelve to eighteen months because I really do want those sprinkles, and I want to believe that you, in fact, have indicated that you are able to provide them."

Next week: Harry Reid explains why he is powerless to accept the results of a coin toss.

While Republicans may be publicly wringing their hands over unemployment numbers (while gleefully calculating how they can use them to their advantage in 2010), they continue to block legislation that would extend unemployment benefits:

Republicans are hoping to attach a number of amendments related to ACORN and immigration — provisions that have delayed floor action on the UI bill indefinitely, according to the offices of both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

A spokesman from the Majority Leader's office mewls:

It seems as if they aren’t negotiating in good faith on this.

Wow, what insight.
For the second time in a month, the Party of No is screwing over those who need help the most -- but they're getting an able assist from the Party Who Can't Spell Majority:

Senate Democratic leaders have twice tried to get the consent of GOP leaders to pass the bill, only to be shot down over procedural sticking points.

So what happened? Democrats asked for the bill to come to the floor under unanimous consent, and Republicans said no. Of course you can bring a bill to the floor in other ways, such as a motion to proceed, and while that could be filibustered, the leadership isn't bothering to see if Republicans would have the guts to filibuster a bill to extend unemployment benefits at the same time that they're pretending to feel the pain of the jobless.

A new twist to the left’s efforts to get Harry Reid to man up on the public option.
Americans United for Change, the labor-backed group allied with the White House, is launching a new radio ad in Nevada that — rather than overtly pressure Reid — cheers him on in his efforts to get the public option done. The none-too-subtle message: Getting health care reform through the Senate will make Reid a hero — if it includes a public option.
The ad casts the fight for reform as a “marathon” and correctly labels the public option as the real way to prevail over the insurance industry, and continues:

Now that the marathon is beginning its last lap … the insurance companies are desperate to prevent us from getting to the finish line.
Luckily the guy whose has been handed the baton to run that last lap –- is Nevada’s Senator Harry Reid.
Luckily … because Harry Reid isn’t afraid to fight the insurance companies. He’s already gone after their anti-trust exemption … and he’ll keep fighting until we get health care for all Americans –- including a public option –- this year.
Cheer him on. Call Senator Reid at 702-388-5020 — tell him to keep fighting until we win.

The spot reflects a divide in the pro-reform camp over how strongly to pressure Dem lawmakers into backing the public action. Scrappier groups such as MoveOn and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee are running ads pressing Democrats hard, while Americans United for Change and Health Care for America Now have generally heeded the White House’s directive that it not open fire on fellow Dems.
In the new spot, AUC is pressuring Reid, but with a light touch, so it’s unlikely to irk the White House. Full script here.